The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,98

an amenable relationship with any of the animals, but apparently an owl had won him over.

“You’ll have heard the ship is haunted?” he asked with an odd combination of shyness and pride, pleased when she nodded. “That would be our dear Artemis. Makes quite the mournful noise when she’s of a mind.”

The back of Cate’s neck prickled. She had been wakened her first night aboard by just such a sound. The ship being haunted seemed quite possible at that point.

“So, she just…stays?” she asked.

“Aye, well, unless we’re in port,” Nathan said judiciously. “More often than not, she goes skulking about. Out cutting about I suspect,” he said with a scolding glower at the bird. “Floozy!”

Artemis returned an unblinking, broken-necked glower.

“But, she always comes back, catches up if we’ve weighed without her. We put in for careening once. Gone for a couple of weeks, she was; we began to think she’d found a better home. But then, she came back with a mate just as we cleared the reef. Set up housekeeping. You know how women are when they have that nesting urge,” he said as an aside, suggestively rolling his eyes. “Been a wretched nursery down here every since.”

Now that he mentioned it, she could see bits of twig, straw and feathers sticking from underneath the owl. Artemis seemed to know that she was the object of conversation, striking several noble poses.

“I don’t see any little ones,” Cate said.

“Oh, once they’ve grown, she runs them off. Sort of the natural way of things, don’t you think?” There was an odd glint in his eye and he chuckled. “Thoughtful she is, always making sure land is near.”

“Where’s her mate now?” Cate asked, peering cautiously around.

“Open-minded sort, she is. He goes gallivanting off, but she always takes him back.”

“Lucky man.”

Nathan caught the lilt in her voice, but opted to ignore it. He gestured toward the floor directly below the roost and the pile of small, dark, pellet-like things.

“There are three or four rats apiece in those. Not bad, eh?” he said, proudly. “The men sell them and the feathers for charms and such, mostly to the conjure women in these parts. One hand feeding the other, or whatever.”

Artemis’ attention swung around, her head making circular movements like the speeding hands of a clock.

“Ah, see there. She’s on to something, now,” cried Nathan.

Cate looked warily over her shoulder into the darkness, wondering what the owl saw.

“Just mind your hair.” He straightened with a meaningful look. “Don’t want any unfortunate incidents and have to cut Artemis free.”

Cate’s reflexively hand went up to smooth it, just in case. “What about His Lordship? I thought he was for the rats.”

“Oh, aye,” Nathan said, unfazed. “Had a bit of a falling out there at first. There were a couple of nasty rows in the middle of the night.”

He frowned at the memory, and then waved it away as he did with so many other things. “Beatrice had a few things to say on the matter, but an accord was met. Parrots don’t to cotton to hunting rats and Artemis didn’t care about the masthead, during the day, at any rate, so…” He shrugged. “There’s enough for everyone, and each unto his…or her territory.”

The bobbing light signaled he had moved on.

“Don’t owls eat lizards, too?” she asked, thinking of the ship’s geckos as she followed close behind.

Nathan’s chuckle came from out of the darkness ahead of her. “That’s why only the fast ’tis aboard. Once in a while, snakes and the like stumble their way aboard, what with the cargo and all. Between dear Artemis down here and His Lordship up there, the little slimmers don’t stand a chance,” he said without sympathy.

Cate's mind reeled at the staggering amounts of philosophies and commentaries in that and so much categorically askew, she had no way of knowing where to begin to respond. What went on in that mind of his was a marvel.

“A few men complained—bad luck and all that—but once they found the rats no longer were chewing their digits, they were agreeable.”

Sometimes his pragmatism could be staggering, she thought as they pressed on.

Over the slosh of water and ship’s rumbling, she heard the rattle of keys, and then the raspy squeak of hinges on a heavy door. Nathan stood aside to beckon her through. The door slammed shut behind them with a crypt-like thud that felt as if she had just been entombed. Judging by the duller echoes, it was a smaller room that Nathan now picked